AS-UU make your bed, II

Friday September 13, 2013, Hardball had offered part one of the above and had noted then that “Nigeria has prepared a bed of thorns and scorpions for itself with the lax manner successive governments have toyed with education, especially at the tertiary level.” Now another month has passed in the ASUU impasse. The strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is in its fourth month. Four months of all universities in the land shut down lock and barrel; four months of doodling; four months of bottom-dragging inertia; four months of indecisiveness; four months of national lethargy; four months of self-damaging incompetence; four months of numbing opacity… and it seems that the malady will continue for many more months.

This long-drawn strike is the story of our education, it is the story of our government, it is the story of our country and the very tale of our lives. There cannot be another country in the world where public tertiary institutions are wilfully damaged in this manner with government resigned or inured to the catastrophe it is bound to unleash. Something must be wrong if government had an agreement with lecturers in 2009, reviewed same last year yet would not deign to keep the pact.

Government pretended to discuss with the striking teachers but from the nature and constitution of the people leading the government team, it is obvious that there was no intention either to negotiate or reach a denouement. In fact, it appears government seeks to paper over the problem as usual and move on as it has done in the past few decades. To lay it bare indeed, where on earth did the Federal Government find Governor Suswam of Benue State (Hardball struggles with his first name now!) to lead negotiation with lecturers? Just because this fellow chanced upon the Government House in Makurdi, suddenly elevated him into a chief negotiator in such crucial matter as tertiary education crisis in Nigeria? A time-marker, a man Hardball cannot remember for anything remarkable in six years at the helm of a state (apart from his beautiful face getting chubbier like that of an agbala nwanyi, a woman at her very prime).

When Suswam failed as he was doomed to, some people had mooted drafting former President Olusegun Obasanjo to help government untie the ASUU knot. But the wail of disapproval must have warned President Goodluck Jonathan against it. Obasanjo, like Ibrahim Babangida is decidedly anti-intellectual and if you look closely you will notice the huge chips the twain still carry on their shoulder because they did not pass through the walls of any Ivory Tower. They will have to carry their boulder unto the hereafter because you were either there or you weren’t and mark you, garnering a dozen honorary degrees or owning half a dozen universities will not change a thing. In brief, both Babangida and Obasanjo did what could be described as eternal damage to our universities. The rot in the system deepened in their times, thus they cannot face ASUU today.

But Hardball finds it befuddling that the Federal Government does not realise that anyone, just any adult who attended school and has commonsense can solve the ASUU matter. We just need to deal plainly and honestly with the teachers; we need to recognise that their demands are genuine and are ultimately in the overall interest of the country. Once that is understood by both parties, we address the immediate and pressing issues and draw up schedules for meeting the rest in an incremental basis. It’s as simple as that; it’s plain dealing, stupid. But as we say on the streets of Lagos, the thing wey man wan chop no allow am see road.

But Hardball must not fail to put it on record that we are eating up our tomorrow, we are arresting our future when we instal cowboy politicians to manage our education. AS-UU make your bed…

Well said Hardball. Well said… surely, as certain as the sun is due to rise eastwards every morning, so it is that as Nigeria makes it “educational” bed, so will it lie on it! Wonder why it has graduates who cannot communicate in good spoken and written English language?